A fun and informative guide to the how and why of proper names and their haphazard entry into common English language by the author of the bestselling Amo, Amas, Amat and More.Mining the English language to turn up a colorful cast of characters, Eugene Ehrlich finds the historic and literary figures who have given their names to the English language in the interest of keeping it vibrant and their names alive. In What's in a Name? Ehrlich traces the history of epony...

In Is It True?, Max Cryer explores the truth or otherwise of facts and beliefs we may have always been told are true, but which on closer examination may not be. In a wide-ranging book encompassing social history, language, music, politics, the natural world and much more, we discover the truth behind some of our most cherished beliefs. Always fresh and amusing, Max Cryer will take you on a journey through your acquired knowledge, testing whether it is really up to scratch.

This book is for every age, anyone who can read and who is interested in what time is, will be the main audience. It explains why people think time is relative, what is time, and gives the audience examples of different devices to "measure" time.If you want to know how to better explain to your kids, your friends or your students about what Time means, then in this book you will find the answers.At first, let me tell you how and why I wrote this book.Long ago, in th...

One of the most ambitious works of paranormal investigation of our time, here is an unprecedented compendium of pre-twentieth-century UFO accounts, written with rigor and color by two of today's leading investigators of unexplained phenomena.In the past century, individuals, newspapers, and military agencies have recorded thousands of UFO incidents, giving rise to much speculation about flying saucers, visitors from other planets, and alien abductions. Yet the extr...

AN OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEARFrom the acclaimed author of The Information and Chaos, a mind-bending exploration of time travel: its subversive origins, its evolution in literature and science, and its influence on our understanding of time itself.Gleick's story begins at the turn of the twentieth century with the young H. G. Wells writing and rewriting the fantastic tale that became his first book, an international sensation, The Time Machine. A host of forc...

If you've forgotten the capital city of Chile; the basics of osmosis; how to solve a quadratic equation; the names of the Bennet sisters in Pride and Prejudice; who wrote the famous poem about daffodils; the use of a conjunction or the number of continents in the world, I Used to Know That will provide all the answers. A light-hearted and informative reminder of all the things that we learnt in school but have since become relegated to the backs of our minds, I Used t...

Remember that time you bumped into Stephen Hawking at the clambake and his monologue on string theory went completely over your head? Man, was that awkward. Or remember the time you were at a party and someone asked, "Who knows how to perform open-heart surgery?" and you were the only one who didn't raise your hand?Well, put all of that embarrassment behind you. Want to dazzle crowds with your wondrous knowledge of Shakespeare and surgeries? Want to learn to woo just like history's...

Following the huge success of THE MEANING OF THINGS and THE REASON OF THINGS, a third collection of bestselling essays from Britain's top philosopher.'Human genius has done much, and promises much, in the way of removing the mystery from many things in our world; at the same time it recognises and honours the mystery in things too.'In this collection A.C. Grayling extends the range of his previous two books to show how much understanding people can gain abo...

Icon Books is an independent British publisher which publishes popular and engaging non-fiction for adults. We’re proud to be part of the Independent Alliance in the UK, publishing companies who share a common vision of editorial excellence and original, diverse publishing. This ebook sampler – available free on Kindle, in EPUB and as a PDF download from our website – covers subjects from popular science to sports biography to philosophy.The sampler includes extracts from: Atomic b...

A book of science like no other, about a scientist like no other.This is a landmark in science writing. It resurrects from the vaults of neglect the polymath Jerome Cardano, a Milanese of the sixteenth century. Who is he? A gambler and blasphemer, inventor and chancer, plagued by demons and anxieties, astrologer to kings, emperors and popes. This stubborn and unworldly man was the son of a lawyer and a brothel keeper, but also a gifted physician and the unacknowled...

A startling investigation of what it means to be human.Human beings know how to make machines. But what kind of machine is a human being? And could we ever make one?In order to answer these questions, other questions get in the way:What is it like to be a human being?What is it like to be some other kind of animal?What is reality?What is consciousness?Is there a God?What is love?Why live?The questions proliferate.

There are thousands of wives' tales we hear at random times, especially when we are young, and we tend to believe them as adults, and pass them on again to children... an endless cycle of false facts being passed through generations. This book puts a stop to this!We know people offer advice with good intentions, but a majority of this advice and beliefs are actually incorrect. This book specializes in misconceptions, so the next time someone tells you something, you can correct the...